Petunia Festival seeks volunteers, parade entrants

Petunia baskets are in place in downtown Dixon in advance of the Petunia Festival, which will be July 2-4, 2021.

The Petunia Festival is a week away. The schedule for July 2-4 is locked in and the much-anticipated carnival is scheduled to arrive on Monday to begin setting up.

But it’s not too late to help.

Two aspects of the festival could use some shoring up, so festival board president Jennifer Bubrick is making an appeal to the community for additional assistance.

The first area is volunteers, especially on the second full day of the festival, when there will be evening live music performances on two stages.

“We are still looking for volunteers,” said Bubrick on Wednesday as she sold 50-50 raffle tickets from a booth set up at the Dixon City Market at Riverfront Park. “We’re always looking for volunteers. Saturday night is a crucial night.”

On the festival’s website, petuniafestival.org, is a list of duties people can pitch in with. It includes parking lot monitors, gatekeeping and admissions, beer ticket sales, fireworks raffle ticket sales, beverage and pouring teams and grounds cleanup. The website has a form to fill out so volunteer coordinators can contact them.

The phone number at the festival headquarters is 815-288-7465.

The other feature of the festival with openings is parade participants, which steps off 1 p.m. Sunday, July 4 from St. Mary’s Catholic School and concludes a mile away at Dixon High School.

“We need parade entries badly,” Bubrick said. “We have 30, usually we’re up to the area of 90 to 100.”

The festival has extended the deadline for parade entries. The theme this year is “Home for the Holidays.”

The annual festival is resuming this year. It was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.